Comment 5 for bug 442388

I have the same problem. I try to use OpenArena with openal option "Off". In this case throw several seconds there are some small looses of sound (like 0.2 seconds silence), and throw about 20 seconds sound lost at all.

In case of openal library there is no sound, but loud scratch noise like "khrh"
I try change properties of openal librares and test it by mplayer:
mplayer -ao openal file.mp3
If i set in /etc/openal/alsoft.conf option "drivers = pulse" - to use pulseaudio - mplayer and openarena does not start. look like openal can not connect to pulseaudio. Same happens with last stable openal 1.9.563.
If "driver = alsa" mplayer work fine, but in some unrepeatable situation i hear the same scratch distortions.

So the problem is openal. This also support that different games affected by this problem.
p.s. Ununtu 9.04 was not affected.